Some posit that awareness, in some form or another, may be a fundamental property of the universe. So, that’s something quite different to Panpsychism in which the integrated information of ‘things’ gives rise to some degree of subjectivity. At the other extreme we have Hard Materialism, which to many seems equally implausible. Yet if we go into the ‘experiences’ of Nondualism, then the initial conjecture immediately appears plausible.

My first intuition on this … ‘there is no center’, consciousness is decentralized. (The internet doesn’t stop without google, although it might feel seriously crippled the first month, all services might be replaced within even less than one month.) This is just intuition based on my past experiments on consciousness and silence. It’s not hard science. I suppose that on a neurological level, consciousness as I experience it here and now might immediately disappear without my physical brain. We have no hard evidence about what happens beyond the physical individual consciousness.
So the next step, going from the individual to the universal feels very difficult, although it might actually go on right now, and I am not aware of it. 🙂

Your intuition would certainly accord with the apparent, irrefutable non-locality of any non-dual/non-self experience, in which the (former) subject is seen as a mind-construct alone. So, ‘I’ am here, talking to Bert who stands eight feet away by the window, and all of this, including what is seen through the window, appears in awareness. What does not appear is the on-going sense that the totality of this awareness is local to the body of me, that it’s somehow channelling from ‘there’, where Bert and the outside world are, to ‘here’, where I am. Everything is referenced spatially by the senses of course, but the issue of the presumed locality of awareness dissolves – it is not referenced spatially itself. These are just my words and interpretations of course Bert, but may I ask, do you recognise or reject anything within them?

To a certain degree, I agree, since I doubt ‘the center’. But the ‘keep it simple’ rule combined with the absence of awareness of other bloggers like you, in my direct personal awareness keeps me doubtful about the non-locality. I could imagine super-localities whose awareness mine is part of, but now too low level to take part in the conscious higher holon. Nowadays it looks easier to say “I am not my mind” vs “I am not my body” whereas 5 years ago, the opposite looked simple … what a wonderful paradox

I think that awareness is fundamental on elementary particle level, and we are a holon of many layers of consciousness, bottom up from elementary particles (and perhaps smaller) to our bodies. Whether this holon continuous beyond is difficult to say. Locusts don’t need the swarm to live. Bees do. So do my individual cells need the rest of my system. But my existence is not necessary for humankind, and I could also survive for several decades without a society.

Interesting Bert! I am not clever enough to speculate on these sorts of things, so I stick to what is true within my own experience. Still, it is fascinating to read proponents of consciousness theories and to see where one’s own instincts, intuitions, and past experiences appear to draw parallels. Thank you.